Monday, March 21, 2011

Iraq’s Maliki Closes Down Two Political Parties For Supporting Protests

Offices of the Iraqi Nation Party in Baghdad after being closed (New York Times)

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has turned to increasingly repressive tactics to stymie the protests occurring throughout the country. In March 2011 he shut down the offices of two political parties that had supported the on-going demonstrations. The official reasons given for the closings had nothing to do with that, but it was obviously a message by the premier that those who stood with the marchers would pay for doing so.

The Iraqi government denied any political motivations for their moves, but the Communists and Nation Party rejected that. A government spokesman for example, claimed that the Communist Party’s building was needed for the Defense Ministry. Nevertheless, both the Nation Party and Communists had come out in support of the protests, and they were quick to point that out to the media. On March 16, Mithal Alusi went as far as to call for a no confidence vote against Maliki by parliament for the closing of the Iraqi Nation Party headquarters, and trying to suppress their pro-demonstration views.

Prime Minister Maliki was caught off guard by the marches that started in February. While the premier made conciliatory statements about the right of Iraqis to take to the streets, and made many promises of reforms, he also quickly moved to put an end to them. The closing of the Iraqi Nation Party and Iraqi Communist Party offices were part of that effort. As neither has a seat in the new parliament, and are relatively minor parties, Maliki could move against them with no real political repercussions. It also showed that the prime minister was willing to sacrifice freedom of speech and pluralism to silence his critics. Maliki’s main priority is to stay in office, and these are the latest examples of him trying to achieve that end.

2 comments:

You state that the Communist Party's newspaper al-Shaab has been closed down. I assume that this is a consequence of Malaki closing down the office from where it was produced. If fresh facilities could be found, then am I correct in assuming that the paper would be free to come back into production? I appreciate, however, that this might be beyond the ICP's resources and that the closing of the paper's office amounts to a de-facto ban on the paper itself.

Yes, the party headquarters and newspaper offices were all in the same building. The party is still operating obviously despite getting kicked out, restarting the newspaper would be much harder since they need all the equipment as you alluded to. The Communists don't have much support in Iraq, but they are one of the oldest parties in the country and were at the heart of the nationalist struggle when the British had control over the country after World War I. It's a setback for the country and democracy to have any parties' voice being shut down.

TWITTER

About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News, and I have been interviewed by Rudaw English. I was interviewed on CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com